Chapter 28

It took nearly an hour of flight before we finally reached Mazuri, which we then used as an excuse to get some food in our systems, them being from the local shop in the form of some special baobab fruit and something that was shockingly tasty, those being fly burgers.

"Bleck, I can't believe you actually ate that," Amy said to me after I'd eaten it, as I was the only one to do so.

"I actually thought it tasted good. And from what I saw in my world, a fly burger is packed with more protein than a week's worth of cow burgers," I smiled.

"I agree with Amy, though. It sounds a bit too much for me," Tails admitted. And then Chip got a bite of the fly burger, and he looked a bit confused before then eating the rest of it and speaking afterwards.

"I'm not complaining, it tasted surprisingly good," Chip giggled.

"Okay, then are we ready to split up into two teams?" I asked, them nodding.

"So I'm going with Tails and Cosmo while you, Amy, and Chip go to the temple, right? Do you know where it is?" Sonic asked, my answer being given from a townie.

"Oh, you're looking for Mazuri's temple? It's down this road, here. It's said to have been the resting place of a famous king from millennia ago," he said, me nodding at him.

"So it'll look like a pyramid, then?" I asked.

"Exactly!" he smirked.

"Then I think I know what to look for," I smiled.

"Same," Amy smirked as we then proceeded down the paths, while Sonic, Tails, and Cosmo got to work on going to the doctor's base, which was at the eastern road. And when we did so, I decided to see if I could still move fast in some way while going through the path at nighttime. And after thinking of speed, I gasped audibly at how I started to run on all fours and that my body turned sleeker, yet stronger!

"WHOA! You look exactly like a cheetah!" Amy gawked at me, me then looking at my arms and smiling. Still anthropomorphic, still in my night form, but now I looked like a mix of human and cheetah!

"Wanna jump on my back to save some time?" I asked, her smirking and nodding as Chip then hitched a ride along with her. And with my half-Mobian strength, I was able to hoist them without issue as we rushed through the daytime stage at nighttime, me using my own form of boosting against any Dark Gaia minions in my way the whole way. And then, after running through the stage and getting to the end in roughly 5 minutes, I heard the hum of a machine in the distance. And the source was none other than the one I wanted to beat up the most right now.

"HEY! EGGHEAD!" I shouted, him then looking at me and gawking.

"WHAT?! How'd you get here so quickly?!" Eggman asked in annoyance as I smirked.

"Not telling you squat!" I shouted as he then snickered and boarded his machine, that being the Egg Beetle. I smirked at that as I proceeded to attack the beetle whenever it left any openings, followed by Amy smacking the pincers off of the machine with her powered-up hammer. And after only 3 hits, I then thought of giant height and, almost instantly, I turned into an elephant! And I then sucked through the trunk very powerfully as Eggman tried to fly away, managing to grab his Eggmobile before he could jet off!

"ACK! Let me go, halfbreed!" he shouted as I then simply turned the Eggmobile upside-down and shook him out of it before then putting it under my foot and stepping on it. "Don't you dare!" Eggman shouted.

"You can walk home!" I shouted angrily before then smashing the machine, him growling angrily before then getting his gun, him then aiming it at Amy! He then shot it at her... but I gawked when Amy managed to deflect the bullet with her hammer and send it right back at the gun, demolishing it and sending it out of Eggman's hands!

"I'm not going to be dealing with that shit EVER AGAIN!" Amy shouted angrily before she then jumped off of me and proceeded to slam her hammer against Eggman so he was sent over the horizon and towards a mechanized base in the distance!

"Looks like Eggman's blasting off again!" I smirked, Amy laughing at me saying that before Chip looked down to the west and spoke up.

"Hey! I think I found the temple!" he said, me looking in that direction and seeing that it was exactly what was described by the Mazuri elder. A pyramid, just with a couple streamers on the top.

"Let's get there and restore the emerald of wind!" I smiled, us then going there with some assistance from my ring powers before then entering the temple. And after walking through for about a minute, we soon found the pedestal to put the emerald in.

"What's this thing supposed to be?" Amy asked when she saw it.

"This is where Chip shines," I smiled, him looking confused before then going to the pedestal... only for his necklace to automatically make the pedestal rise up, me then putting the green emerald in the slot, it making the emerald regain its shimmer and color before we felt the earth begin to quake beneath us! And after a bit of that, we then exited the temple to see that Tails had arrived and looked at me with a smile.

"You did it! This piece of the planet just latched back into place! My satellite picked it up! Take a look!" Tails smirked, me seeing that he was right and that the piece was now back against the core of the planet, which made Chip smile.

"So that's why these temples are important! I think I remember something!" Chip said, me smirking at that. "Each of these temples are tied to the powers of the Chaos Emeralds, but also to those rings that are on your body! And I think that, if we used the powers of both of them and the Super Emeralds, we could actually defeat Dark Gaia for good!" Chip said, me gawking at that. The ability to defeat Dark Gaia?! That sounded way too awesome!

"Wouldn't that be bad, though?" Amy asked in confusion.

"Not at all! If Dark Gaia is gone, then that means that the diseases and darkness that he sows in peoples' hearts even in slumber would be gone! Malaria, insanity, split personalities, dementia, Parkinsons, and many other things would be a thing of the past!" Chip smiled, me knowing now that we HAD to do it. Especially since, back in my world, I had lost my grandmother to Parkinsons. The pain of that loss was what I called as two deaths. The first death is when they get Parkinsons, the second is when they leave for the afterlife.

"Then we'll need to find more Super Emeralds! We already have 3 of them from Elise, Mighty, and Tails finding them, so we'll need to find 4 more to get the full set. Anyone want to go on a search to find them?" I smiled, Amy nodding at that as I then called up Rouge specifically as we went back to the village.

"Agent Rouge? Come in, this is Agent Martinez," I said, her then getting on the horn immediately.

"Agent Rouge here, what is it?" she asked as I then smiled.

"Are you currently on an assignment, or are you free? Because I need to borrow your treasure-hunting skills to help find the Super Emeralds," I said, her gawking at that on the other end.

"The Super Emeralds?! Those are the most elusive gems I've ever tried to find! I only have one so far, but I've heard there are a total of 7 in the entire world! Why do you ask?" she asked as I simply smirked back.

"Because we need to defeat a great evil that's worse than Eggman and even Mephiles. But we'll need those Super Emeralds to do so. We have three, you have one, so we'd need to find 3 more to complete the quota. Meet with us at the entrance of Spagonia University at 800 hours, got it?" I smirked.

"Gotcha, I'll get there right now! Always good to be fashionably early, after all," Rouge smirked as she then hung up as we got back to Mazuri, and we saw that group B had managed to rescue Professor Pickle and get the Gaia Manuscripts in hand.

"I see you got the green emerald back to normal! So now what do we do?" Sonic asked with a smile.

"Now we go back to Spagonia to regroup. We've found out that Dark Gaia can be defeated forever, but only if we can accumulate the power of my powerful accessories, the Chaos Emeralds, and the Super Emeralds," I smirked, that making Cosmo smile.

"Sounds good, but where do we find the latter?" Cosmo asked.

"I've already gotten someone to meet with us at Spagonia at 8 in the morning, so let's get to flying! Miles, if you would?" I smirked, him nodding as he then got the plane unfolded and I then spoke to Mister Pickles.

"So you're the professor we've been hoping to find, huh?" I asked, him nodding with a small smile. He actually looked exactly like he did in the game, but in a realistic lens. His eyes were very small and partially hidden by his hair. And he also had a sandwich in hand.

"Indeed, I am, young Cheryl Martinez. I've heard of your efforts in the papers numerous times. Saving the nation of Soleanna from Eggman, getting married to Princess Elise III... becoming Mistress C in order to throw a corrupt government commander behind bars. You have quite a lot of personalities and an equal number of weird capabilities..." he said, me smiling and blushing at how he spoke about me. Almost as if he were thinking of me as a celebrity. "If you wouldn't mind, when we return to Spagonia, I'd love to see a sample of your animal transformation powers as well as how you use the green Chaos Emerald, as I've heard you use that one the most," he said, me smiling and nodding at that, though I did still feel weirded out that he was going to do a study on my powers.

"Uh, sure, yeah, I can do that. So long as I can get the Veggietales tape in the process," I smiled.

"But of course, after all, from what Sonic and Tails have said, you were the one to keep Eggman occupied while I was getting rescued," Pickle smiled as we then boarded the Tornado and we proceeded to fly into the distance and back to Spagonia.

"So do I need to give the Super Emerald to you or something?" Tails asked as I smiled at him.

"Only whenever we need to get to the final temple," I said, him nodding at me as we talked of some things on the way back, mainly things about tv shows that we liked to laugh about. And I spoke of one show in my timeline that was hilarious, which was called World's Dumbest. And when I described some of the dumb criminals, I managed to get everyone to laugh at one in particular, that being a criminal that helped rob a bank of 300 thousand dollars and then, a week later, bragged about it on a radio show. And that one of the commentators said, "You are dumb as a box of hair!"

"Okay, how can a criminal be THAT STUPID?! HAHA!" Amy laughed at that as Cosmo chuckled.

"Yeah, that sounds very stupid. Stupider than anything I've seen in my 2 centuries of life," Cosmo smirked.

"Eh, I'd say that Eggman could be just as stupid in some instances. Such as expecting that he wouldn't get imprisoned for attacking a kingdom and trying to kidnap Elise multiple times... and even then, him trying to destroy Station Square with Chaos just to build an amusement park over it is just as stupid," I admitted.

"Despite you being terrified of his guns in the past, before you got that yellow emerald," Sonic smiled at me.

"Hey, at least I'm not afraid of them anymore. I'm now fast enough to dodge gunfire and I can deflect bullets with electrical barriers. Also, Amy, that bullet deflection back at the temple? Coolest thing I've ever seen," I smirked.

"Really?" Amy smiled at me.

"Yep! Only one thing could come close to it, and that would be a competition called Battlebots," I smiled, her smiling at that.

"What's that supposed to be? Isn't that what we're doing right now? Fighting robots?" Tails asked.

"No, no, I think I know what she's talking about. A tournament back in the far past where people would build robots and have them fight to the death for trophies. They had weight requirements, and each had a weapon unique to them. We have an entire course at the university dedicated to studying some film of various Battlebots fights, with one of the best-quality ones being a fight of Uppercut VS Sawblaze. Where the former caused the gas tank to explode on the latter with a deadly weapon," Pickle explained, me smiling at that.

"Not only that, but I actually have been tinkering a bit with help from Maria on how to make some Battlebots, us managing to make a prototype that I call Steel Wool," I smirked as I then showed a picture on my phone, the robot shaped like a sheep with armor looking like wool, having wheels on the underside, and having a weapon in the front that was a deadly spinner.

"A ground-based robot that has a spinning weapon in the front? It looks kinda cute other than that," Cosmo smiled at me.

"And those weapons are key to winning fights. Very few robots can win consistently without a strong weapon to deal damage," I smiled. "But like I said, it's still a prototype. We're hoping to make a version that can act of its own accord with a kind heart and be on our side."

"You should've told me about that, then! I can help out with that," Tails smiled.

"Well, I didn't know if you'd want to, considering that you have your own inventions to worry about," I smiled, being truthful.

"Of course, I'd want to! It'd be amazing if we had a robot on our side that could rival Eggman's creations!" Tails smirked widely.

"Then we'll go ahead and get to working on it after the adventure has concluded," I smiled.